


ball like a hound, babe i want to be your man

by ken_ichijouji (dommific)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Paris, Alternate Universe - Police, Fluff, M/M, Painter Katsuki Yuuri, Policeman Victor Nikiforov, Romantic Comedy, See How She Writes Situations That Inspire Second-Hand Embarrassment Without a Net, Shoplifting, TIL that's a tag, Watch as I Drag People Who Only Go to Tourist Traps in Any New City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-14 13:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16493870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dommific/pseuds/ken_ichijouji
Summary: “Is this your home?”Yuuri glances up, staring wide eyed.Phichit is forgotten.The worldis forgotten.Yuuri could spontaneously combust right now and it wouldn’t even matter, as lo, before him stands this beautiful specimen of plush, platinum hair and eyes that are bluer than the waters of the Adriatic Sea Yuuri captured thanks to a quick trip to Croatia. His smile is worth more than all of the jewels in the world, and Yuuri very, very,extremelybelatedly realizes he’s the officer dispatched to his robbery.





	ball like a hound, babe i want to be your man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lily_winterwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/gifts).



> Soundtrack on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/12168581471/playlist/5tpXnSBg4I8fxIHnN8VGCP?si=odVLk8EmTnC1umvvGG03Og)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man living in Paris’s sixth arrondissement, will likely have an attempted home robbery at least once.

Or so Katsuki Yuuri tries to lie to himself the day he sees the opening salvo of a forced entry on his front door. He rents it because it’s basically flooded with natural light, which is highly necessary as a painter, and also because Pierre Hermé is less than a block over.

He shouldn’t indulge, he knows this, but when he’s stressed before his portfolio reviews they’re a godsend.

Anyways, since his mother back in Hasetsu raised him properly, Yuuri does not enter the flat and instead calls the local constabulary.

Then he texts his best friend at school, a sculptor who is the only human alive to look daisy-fresh after not sleeping for three days due to deadlines stacked on top of each other.  _Someone tried to rob me, I think_.

Phichit responds within seconds.  _Weird. Everyone knows it’s mostly broke art students in that building. Why waste the effort?_

Yuuri shrugs.  _No idea. I hope the police show up quickly. I’m worried about Vicchan._

Phichit replies with a few custom emoji, including a crying Pomeranian.  _ Doggo! Noooo let him live! _

Yuuri snorts.  _ Yeah I’m fine btw. _

The dots appear that mean Phichit’s typing, but at that moment a man addresses Yuuri in polite French. “Is this your home?”

Yuuri glances up, staring wide eyed.

Phichit is forgotten.

_ The world  _ is forgotten.

Yuuri could spontaneously combust right now and it wouldn’t even matter, as lo, before him stands this beautiful specimen of plush, platinum hair and eyes that are bluer than the waters of the Adriatic Sea Yuuri captured thanks to a quick trip to Croatia. His smile is worth more than all of the jewels in the world, and Yuuri very, very,  _ extremely _ belatedly realizes he’s the officer dispatched to his robbery.

He has a partner with him, taller and more golden-blond than white-blond. He’s got scruff and a nice smile too, but really, Yuuri’s entire line of sight has narrowed to the one right in front of him. “Ah. Yes,” he answers in his (to his own ears) stilted and clumsy French.

“Should I switch to English?” the policeman asks.

“Yes,” Yuuri answers.The man has a slight Slavic twist to the end of his vowels. It’s not surprising — Paris is as much a melting pot in some ways as the United States claims to be.

Officer Gorgeous reviews the information on his notepad. “Katsuki Yuuri, you live in your flat alone?”

“Well, I have my dog,” Yuuri answers.

The cop’s eyes widen as his partner chuckles. “Now you’ve done it,” his partner says in a deep, rumbling French accent. “Vitya loves dogs more than reason.”

_ Vitya _ .

“If Makkachin was alone when I was robbed, I’d never forgive myself,” the Adonis but a Policier retorts. He puts on a pair of latex gloves, and his partner does the same. They go to work, and Yuuri stands in the hallway wondering if it’s too creepy to photograph Victor’s profile and spectacular ass without his consent.

His sense of shame is about to lose to his incredible thirst when Victor brings a reddish-brown ball of curls in his arms. “Vicchan!” Yuuri exclaims. He holds his four-legged best friend in his arms for a while, and he cries a little into the nape of his neck from sheer relief. Vicchan returns the affection and licks his cheek, drying his tears.

They eventually let Yuuri in to catalogue any missing items, but it seems his military grade deadbolt saved the day. Not that he has a lot of cash or anything lying around, but it’s still a relief to know that they didn’t actually get anything priceless.

Policier Giacometti gives Yuuri a smile and a wink as he exits into the hall. Policier Beauty and Grace Personified lingers, but Yuuri doesn’t dare hope it means anything beyond doing his job. Yuuri is handed a business card, though, and it’s embossed with a name, badge number, and a mobile number.

Victor Nikiforov, Yuuri reads. A regal-sounding name, though that could be half hard-on he’s got talking.

He smells like clouds and caramelized sugar, okay? There’s only so much Yuuri can take.

“Call me if it happens again,” Policier Victor offers. “Or if you have any concerns at all about your safety. I wan… _ we _ want you safe.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says. He hates to see Policier Victor go, but he could probably watch him leave for the rest of his life and not feel bad about it.

Yuuri checks his phone to see that Phichit has 1000000% blown iMessage the fuck up. The most recent texts say things about murder and bloodstains and some weird reference to a Talking Heads song Phichit is definitely too young and not American enough to be able to type the lyrics out so perfectly like this.

Granted, some of them are in French as is befitting the locale.

_ Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?_  
_Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better!  
_ _ Run run run run run run run away oh oh! _

Yuuri rolls his eyes.  _I’m not dead, you absolute heathen._

Phichit sends several sad emoji including the crying dog three more times.  _I hate people when they’re not polite._

Instead of berating Phichit through a chain of kaomoji, Yuuri just calls him. “Why are you like this.”

“How will I ever find a wealthy patron if I’m not weird?” Phichit blithely answers.

“That’s...extremely fair,” Yuuri says after a beat. “Anyways, I’m fine. No one was murdered. Nothing was even taken, they didn’t get in successfully. Vicchan is fine, too.”

“Cool,” Phichit replies. “Then I’m going to go back to my welding torch.”

“That would be so weird out of context,” Yuuri says.

“Don’t hate — participate. Bye, Yuuri.” Phichit hangs up, and Yuuri takes Lovely Victor Meter Maid’s card to his window seat with Vicchan curling up on his shins.

Victor Nikiforov the beautiful long-arm of the law. Yuuri wants to see him again and maybe make some kind of awkward mating dance attempt, but he can’t really call him for personal matters. Not when he obviously meant he wanted to keep in touch about the attempted break-in.

Yuuri holds the card to his lips for a second, filled with disappointment that his pretty officer will likely be a ship passing in the night that comprises his life. A sketchbook digs into his back, and Yuuri grabs it. The lamplights below and his overhead light will suffice as he sketches a smiling Victor from memory.

It hardly does him justice, but it’s something.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri stirs honey into his tea at a brasserie just about under the Eiffel Tower. The weather is mild minus a light mist, and he’s only by the tourist trap because the guy Seung Gil’s set him up with is too new to the city for something more off-beat.

It’s a pretty bad sign when a possible new romance opens as a giant cliché. Yuuri would be offended, but there are worse things he supposes.

The date is…fine. He’s studying in the doctoral SIEB program at EPHE. He’s handsome enough, but he talks with his mouth full a lot. He won’t stop talking at all, really, and when Yuuri tries to say something about his curriculum at ENSBA, he gets cut off by…whatever his name is ordering more escargot or talking too long about methodology courses.

Yuuri isn’t super keen to open up when things are new with even a friend. Phichit likes to say he pried information out with a crowbar in their early days. Still, he feels like this guy just wants to monologue with no interest in him at all. Sure he’s not the best painter ever, but he’s still in Paris at ENSBA, and that counts for something.

The guy takes a call while getting them profiteroles, and Yuuri excuses himself to use the facilities. His manners won’t let him just ditch, much as he may wish otherwise. Instead he pauses at the inside bar, requesting a glass of house champagne. When he’s served, he takes a sip that amounts to about a third of the coupe. It’s good, but there’s no such thing as bad wine in France — French champagne exists in two forms only: good or incredible.

Yuuri sighs and drinks more slowly the second time. A voice a few stools down requests a Kir Royale in French with a familiar lilt and intonation on the syllables. Yuuri turns and…it’s Handsome Policier Victor.

Handsome Policier Victor notices the stare, and he meets Yuuri’s gaze. He lights up, his smile wide and heart-shaped, his eyes glimmering like fairy pools. “Monsieur Katsuki,” he says as he moves down the bar to sit next to Yuuri.

“Policier Nikiforov,” Yuuri says. He smiles too. His bad date just became worthwhile.

Victor wears a gray puffer jacket with a perfectly molded black t-shirt beneath. His jeans are the sum total of Yuuri’s downfall. How does someone take such a simple ensemble and make it obscenely high fashion and sexy like this?

The world is cruel.

Yuuri wants to pet his clavicle and ribcage with his teeth.

“How is your Vicchan?”

Yuuri smiles. “He’s great. He’s acting like nothing ever happened.”

“Dogs are the embodiments of happiness and love,” Victor replies. He pulls out an iPhone and in an album called Makkachin containing over 2000 photos, Yuuri is introduced to a smiling brown standard poodle. There are videos where she bounces instead of walks. She’s charming.

Once the exchange of dog photos dies down, Victor orders them a second round. “So you paint, I saw.”

“Yes, though I’m nothing spectacular,” Yuuri demurs. “I do abstract impressionism mostly. My professor says I can make a viewer hear music through my brush strokes, but I don’t know if that’s really true.”

“I’d believe it,” Victor says. His smile is warm and inviting, like the rotenburo at Yuuri’s family inn back home. “I would love to see a show starring you at the Orsay, I think.”

“Oh god those people are giants, I could never,” Yuuri blurts. He downs the wine, hoping it doesn’t put Victor off. He’s awkward and weird and Victor is some kind of elegant, mythic bird. It’s so easy to blow this.

“Mark my words, you’ll stand among them with grace in a few years,” Victor replies. It makes Yuuri…believe. He can actually believe for once that he’s got greatness within. It changes his whole paradigm.

For a minute.

Victor leaves some Euro on the counter. “I have to go, alas. Duty calls at midnight, and I should sleep before then.” He pats Yuuri’s upper arm, squeezing it, and his eyes drift over him twice. “We’ll meet again.”

As he watches him go with palpable longing, Yuuri considers robbing himself blind so he can talk to Victor again. This chance encounter won’t be enough. He’s not that fortunate to get anything greater or another random meeting.

Duty calls at midnight, he said.

Yuuri considers it. No, it’s ridiculous, and filing false reports is a crime in and of itself. He won’t do something so stupid and rash, no matter how sweet and beauteous Policier Victor is.

 

* * *

                                                                                                   

It takes until 23:00 for Yuuri’s resolve to fall down into a pit of voles to be eaten and ripped apart, summarily destroyed like the hopes of children who get their candy taken for no actual reason.

Instead of filing a fake report, he decides to do something  _ somehow still more idiotic. _

There’s a grocer in the next building’s bottom floor. He walks up and down aisles in giant glowing cat ear headphones, a far-too-big coat for the weather, and cases the joint. Shoplifting from a large company isn’t really a crime in late stage capitalism, or so he tells himself the 8000th time his knees knock too hard.

There’s some candy he likes, strawberry Swedish licorice, and he puts a box in his pocket. Then, he fights the urge to throw up.  _ Lawful good, _ he hears Phichit aggressively scold in his inner monologue.

Stealing so a hot, kind cop will see him again is probably more like  _ chaotic stupid _ , but whatever.

He grabs some Oranginas also. He likes them. They’re the closest to a sparkling yuzu drink he can find in this country. He considers the audacity of a couple of entire baguettes, then realizes on his first go at this he should probably stick to easier things. Crawl before he runs, et cetera. Yuuri pockets some cakes, sandwiches, a decent quality wheel of brie, and a couple of split bottles of champagne. The cat ears glow a vibrant blue. He nods his head back and forth to some music as he puts toilet tissue, condoms, and a candle that smells like strawberries in a basket for plausible deniability.

The boy sitting behind the register is blond and looks like he’s never had a day of fun in his whole life. He gives Yuuri the side-eye over the condoms, his eyebrows skyrocket at the candle, and he ignores the toilet paper.

Yuuri sweats bullets and pays with the cash he has on hand. He gets out the door without anyone chasing him. Which…good. The plan is stealing and turning himself in.

He gets back to his building. He assembles the sundries on his table. He paces a groove into his floor which Madame Baranovskaya below will hate. Vicchan tries to get at the brie but is singularly rebuffed.

Finally. He calls the police, but like so many things he cannot make himself actually follow through. He bails. He hangs up with a loud squeal into the line when a dispatcher greets him in French.

Yuuri eats the candy and three of the sandwiches to try and suffocate his feelings, inadequacies, and moronic tendencies all at once. He is… _ so mad  _ at himself. He could have just asked Victor to call sometime, if he could know his days off to have a picnic in the Jardin du Tuileries or something.

Instead he did… _ this _ .

He deserves nothing like Victor if this is how pathetic and pointless his courting habits are. He’s a fool.

He’s so busy flogging himself that he doesn’t sleep, eating all the snacks he bought while drowning his sorrows in Do As Infinity’s saddest possible greatest hits, begging Vicchan to absolve him of his sins, and then it’s light out and there’s a knock at his door.

Yuuri answers it wearing an oversized brown and tan sweater, his boxer briefs, and socks. This is him. This is his life now. Why fight it?

On the other side is Victor, who is still in uniform and slightly tired but pretty nonetheless.

This is the only time in Yuuri’s history he has regretted not wearing pants.

“Um.” Yuuri purses his lips. Dear God, _why_?

“I was listening on the scanner, and heard that there was a call at this address. The caller screamed a little and hung up on the dispatcher,” Victor answers. “I figured I’d swing by just in case something happened.”

“I stole like 9000 things!” Yuuri blurts. Then he covers his mouth with his hands, making weird sounds behind it. He can feel sweat drip down his forehead. He’s hideous, no one should ever love him. He should turn bros to stone like Medusa because he’s such a monstrous buffoon.

“I’m…what?” Victor asks.

Yuuri’s panic abates, causing him to crash like falling debris from the stars. His shoulders sag, his heart aches. He should come clean. He needs to come clean.

“I’m incredibly stupid and I think you’re incredibly lovely,” Yuuri manages. “And…I wanted to see you again, but I didn’t get your personal phone number. So I shoplifted and was going to turn myself in to you, but then I realized how juvenile it was, and…you probably don’t like me anymore if you ever even did. It’s nothing less than I deserve.”

Yuuri stares down at his UNIQLO socks. They’re color blocked in two shades of gray and white, and he thinks perhaps that’s some kind of metaphor for how badly he just upended his whole life. He’s probably going to jail since he confessed to a Policier. Goodbye, Beaux Arts. Goodbye possible summer internship at the Tate Modern.

Enough time passes that Yuuri finally hazards a glance up and Victor looks mostly confused. And…possibly pleased? No, he  _ is  _ pleased, but like he’s trying to hide it or something.

“I should not enable this,” Victor says out loud. “I really should at least escort you to the place, let you tell the management, and have them decide to press charges, but honestly…you’re quite cute. I’ve hoped to see you again also. Long as you never do anything else like it…I can pocket this for a funny how we met story down the road.”

Victor winks. Yuuri cycles through confusion, relief, understanding, and joy at such a rapid pace he gets light-headed. “You…like me too.”

“I do, and this is likely the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me in a 1990s romcom starring one of the women from _Friends_ way,” Victor says.

Yuuri smiles while pulling at the hems of his sleeves. “So do you…I ate all the stuff I shoplifted, but I can make you an omurice? It’s like a ketchup omelette thing.”

“Sounds like a date,” Victor offers.

Yuuri lets him in, locking the impervious-to-all-harm deadbolt behind him, and they get to know each other while making chicken fried rice, then carefully folding it into the halves of an omelette. Their small talk somehow ends up in Yuuri’s bedroom, where he learns Victor is  _ the long arm of the law  _ in more ways than one.

It takes a couple more dates before Victor is swayed into cuffing Yuuri to the headboard, but it’s well worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> For my lovely darling Lily who has helped keep me sane for the last like literal ten months. <3
> 
> This can also be summarized as:  
>  _Phichit: Fuck the Police._  
>  _Yuuri: God knows I am trying._  
> 
> 
> I've been to the Eiffel Tower brasserie, or one of them. It's meant to be the one I went to that I have no way to find the name of. Ah well. The title is a line in "20th Century Boy" on the playlist. Also, I'd apologize for "Sexx Laws", but we all know I am negative percent sorry.


End file.
